1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to information technology and, more particularly, to implementation of metrics to measure performance.
2. Description of Related Art
Information Technology (IT) is the broad subject concerned with all aspects of managing and processing information, especially within a large organization or company. The information managed may be any type of information, but often includes business processes such as, for example, inventory management, invoicing, and accounting. Sometimes, IT is referred to as Information Services (IS) or Management Information Services (MIS). Computers and related technology are central to information management.
Many types of entities, ranging from large and small corporations to universities, require IT services. IT often requires the integration of hundreds or thousands of networked computers and many different types of application software and databases, sometimes running in different operating environments. Each piece of the system may be responsible for a different element of a business function. For example, one suite of application programs may be responsible for inventory management while another suite of application programs is responsible for billing and accounting functions within a company. However, because inventory, billing, and accounting are not completely autonomous functions, there must be some amount of integration between the application software to, at the very least, allow or sharing of some data between application suites.
Often, because of the complexities involved in providing large scale IT services, IT services are often outsourced to or provided by an outside company with specific expertise in IT. This outsourcing of IT services may be a significant operating expense for a company and the availability or unavailability of services may also significantly impact a companies revenue streams in various areas of operation. For example, some of the IT services provided by an IT provider may impact billing within one line of business for the company while other IT services may impact inventory within a different line of business for the company. Therefore, in order to ensure greater profits, companies desire to have a measure of the impact of IT upon their business in a manner that allows them to make appropriate business decisions.
Furthermore, software organizations within an IT provider need to implement measurement (metrics) programs in order to collect, validate, store, analyze and report operational measures to determine whether they are meeting Level of Service agreements and other operational measures associated with the provision of IT goods and services. This requires the implementation of metrics processes. Leaders of groups within an IT provider also need a way to quickly determine the current status of the metrics implementation, identify locations that need assistance, and determine if progress is being made. Individual locations needed an inexpensive method to determine their current status, and identify what their next and future steps should be so that they can develop plans.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a method, system, and computer software product that aids IT providers in implementing metrics to determine, for example, further plans and steps in implementing an IT service or project for a client.